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My Lucky Escape

Vida Loca

Devoted Cultist
Joined
Feb 2, 2019
Messages
226
Location
Somewhere...out there...
Just wondering if anyone has had a very lucky escape of some kind? Apologies if this is already on here somewhere...

Here is one of mine:

When my Grandson was a small toddler I went to visit my daughter at her home for a few hours. We were all upstairs and my daughter had just bathed and changed him and he was toddling around in the back bedroom whilst my daughter popped into the bathroom next door to pick up a towel. As she did I walked into the bedroom and couldn't see him anywhere. I then noticed the window was wide open as it was a hot day. I casually glanced out and could see him toddling across a slightly sloping roof of the kitchen extension below. There was one heck of a drop off the roof. He was slowly chasing the kitten they had that had escaped and was laughing as he got further away from me and closer to the edge. My blood quite literally ran cold. There was no way I could get to him in time and he thought it was great fun to follow the kitten. My daughter came back literally seconds later and I warned her not to panic or make a sound. I then leaned out of the window and called him then the kitten gently. Then made puss puss noises and gradually the kitten came back to the window followed by my grandson and I told him I had chocolate for him. Luckily the kitten let me pick it up and I held it up to show my grandson telling him to come and cuddle it. Thankfully he toddled back up to the window and I managed to grab him. My daughter and I both burst into tears with utter shock and relief. From then on the window was kept locked and a faulty catch was repaired.
Text moved from later post--Yith
 
My wife was being treated in Guys hospital and had some complications from surgery which extended her stay for a couple of nights. The day she was released was the day the terrorists attacked London Bridge and Borough Market. I was frequenting the food establishments at Borough and Tooley Street each evening after tucking her in, so it was likely I would have been in the vicinity of the attack if she’d had to stay a further night.
 
I would vote for an IHTM Lucky Escape thread, (maybe because I have an underwhelming one of my own! ) and would find first hand accounts more compelling and thought provoking than the general thread. How so many people survive their adolescence is beyond me.

Here's my story. It's not dramatic, just embarrassing:
When I was a young and very foolhardy woman, I had to travel for family business. I was camping on a farm 40 miles from the city. I'd gone there with a friend of a friend to "live in nature." After a week he left me there, I assume because my interest in him was only platonic. My family was able to contact me, but I had no transit. So I decided to hitchhike.

The first person who picked me up was a woman who looked very worried. There was a cross hanging from her rear view mirror. I thought she was another fearful, conventional person (I was very young and immature you understand), and believed that I had escaped the trap of that convention because of my independent spirit. I don't recall the next two people who picked me up, but the last one was a pretty ordinary looking man who didn't raise any red flags. Initially, when he'd picked me up, he said he could drop me off right at the house in the city where I'd be staying. Later, he said he had a little cabin nearby, and asked if I wanted to see it. I was intent on achieving my goal of reaching the city and not interested in detours or delays. I never understood why people didn't stick to their goals, but got sidetracked and wasted time instead. I said no thank you. When we reached the city, instead of dropping me off where he'd promised to, he suddenly said he had to drop me off right away, and practically kicked me out of his car.

When I grew up a bit, I realized he could have raped me if I'd gone to an isolated place with him, and that he might have dropped me off as soon as he could because he was losing control of himself but didn't want to do anything where there might be witnesses. I've also thought that maybe the woman who picked me up prayed for my safety, and that her prayers worked. I'm not even religious, but, prayers or no prayers, I appreciate her far more now than I did then! Moral #1: don't hitchhike. Moral #2: don't be a snob about "squares."
 
Thanks Both I did mean personal lucky escapes and realised after reading it the other thread was for generalised ones. I have a few I will post later. Scary story Ibis. I used to Hitch Hike years ago when I was young and naive but fortunately never had a bad experience like you. I wouldn't dream of doing it these days these are very different times.
 
My blood quite literally ran cold.

Indeed! Been there.

When my eldest was a toddler we lived in an upstairs flat with windows that opened wide. I repeatedly told the ex NOT to leave them open.
Of course he did, repeatedly, probably to wind me up. One day he did it and I didn't know, but Junior did. I turned my back on her for the few seconds it took her to shin up to the window and start climbing out.

I leapt over and grabbed her, and held her down on the floor for a full minute to be sure my eyes weren't deceiving me and that I'd actually stopped her falling two storeys to her death.

Ex collected a faceful on his arrival home and I then went out to buy lengths of chain to screw to the windows and stop them opening more than a couple of inches.
 
I would vote for an IHTM Lucky Escape thread, (maybe because I have an underwhelming one of my own! ) and would find first hand accounts more compelling and thought provoking than the general thread. How so many people survive their adolescence is beyond me.

Here's my story. It's not dramatic, just embarrassing:
When I was a young and very foolhardy woman, I had to travel for family business. I was camping on a farm 40 miles from the city. I'd gone there with a friend of a friend to "live in nature." After a week he left me there, I assume because my interest in him was only platonic. My family was able to contact me, but I had no transit. So I decided to hitchhike.

The first person who picked me up was a woman who looked very worried. There was a cross hanging from her rear view mirror. I thought she was another fearful, conventional person (I was very young and immature you understand), and believed that I had escaped the trap of that convention because of my independent spirit. I don't recall the next two people who picked me up, but the last one was a pretty ordinary looking man who didn't raise any red flags. Initially, when he'd picked me up, he said he could drop me off right at the house in the city where I'd be staying. Later, he said he had a little cabin nearby, and asked if I wanted to see it. I was intent on achieving my goal of reaching the city and not interested in detours or delays. I never understood why people didn't stick to their goals, but got sidetracked and wasted time instead. I said no thank you. When we reached the city, instead of dropping me off where he'd promised to, he suddenly said he had to drop me off right away, and practically kicked me out of his car.

When I grew up a bit, I realized he could have raped me if I'd gone to an isolated place with him, and that he might have dropped me off as soon as he could because he was losing control of himself but didn't want to do anything where there might be witnesses. I've also thought that maybe the woman who picked me up prayed for my safety, and that her prayers worked. I'm not even religious, but, prayers or no prayers, I appreciate her far more now than I did then! Moral #1: don't hitchhike. Moral #2: don't be a snob about "squares."
You are a very lucky lady, sounds like the guy who picked you up was definitely a bit suspect.
 
My sister's mate was once picked up hitchhiking by a weird bloke. He begged her to allow him to 'put just one finger in, just a bit!' and she was considering letting him do that just to get away when she noticed he had webbed fingers...
Don't hitchhike in Norfolk.
 
When I was a teen my friend and I had got off the train at night and were waiting at the busstop where taxis would arrive and collect passengers.
A car pulled up and the driver said " Where to girls?" and we thought it was a taxi as it looked like one.
We normally would drop off one ,divide the fare to there and the other would continue on.
Anyway on route to my friend's place we noticed that it wasn't a taxi so got him to stop a few houses away from my friend's house. We offered to pay but he didn't want any.
We were still spooked so quickly walked a short way till we were out of direct sight and hid behind a bush till he drove away.
My Dad came to collect me from my friend's house.
 
My sister's mate was once picked up hitchhiking by a weird bloke. He begged her to allow him to 'put just one finger in, just a bit!' and she was considering letting him do that just to get away when she noticed he had webbed fingers...
I suppose it was difficult for him to get a date, but still -- highly inappropriate behavior on his part!!!
 
When I was a teen my friend and I had got off the train at night and were waiting at the busstop where taxis would arrive and collect passengers.
A car pulled up and the driver said " Where to girls?" and we thought it was a taxi as it looked like one.
We normally would drop off one ,divide the fare to there and the other would continue on.
Anyway on route to my friend's place we noticed that it wasn't a taxi so got him to stop a few houses away from my friend's house. We offered to pay but he didn't want any.
We were still spooked so quickly walked a short way till we were out of direct sight and hid behind a bush till he drove away.
My Dad came to collect me from my friend's house.

Years ago I was driving a big Peugeot, waiting to pick up one of my kids late at night in town. I was way too early so parked up discreetly on a side street. Two merry young women then opened the doors and jumped in, thinking I was a taxi service!

They were polite and cheerful but hopelessly drunk. I got the address they wanted and took them home so they were safe, silly girls.
Luckily for them they'd picked a 'taxi' with a respectable driver. Could have gone much worse for them.
 
Gravity saved me from being run over and killed when I was about 16/17 years old.

I was waiting at a bus stop. I was standing right on the kerb edge looking up the road to my right to see if the bus was coming. The road was empty and I could see quite a way up it. There were no cars anywhere in either direction and the only thing I could hear were birds in the trees. As I was waiting, I was balancing on the very corner of the kerbstone and allowing my weight to transfer forwards, letting gravity pull me over the edge and I would slip down off the kerb into the road. Here I would take a step or two forwards before spinning around and hopping back up again on one foot. Which was fine as I could see (and kept checking) that the road was desserted in both directions.

I did it maybe 10 times or so, getting the balance perfect each time before allowing myself to fall forwards. Finally, I tried it once more and for some reason when it came to tipping over, I didn't get the balance quite right and gravity pulled me back on to the heels of my feet. At the very instant that my heels touched the pavement, a car came speeding past on the wrong side of the road. I nearly sh*t myself it was so close and fast. It must have accelerated up the hill and zig-zagged through some speed bumps at tremendous speed, ending up my side of the road doing about 70 mph in a 30 mph zone. I hadn't heard a thing as I was focused on the balancing act.

I am quite convinced that I would have died that day had gravity tipped me over.
 
I had the 'kids and windows' one too!

We lived in a little terraced cottage in a National Trust village (which meant that you couldn't change the windows) and had those big heavy sash windows, plus three toddling kids and a baby.

I was downstairs with the baby, when a friend passing knocked on the door and asked me if I knew the children were sitting on the windowledge upstairs. I thought she meant inside and smiled and nodded, went upstairs to see what they were up to and found all three (aged around five, four and two) with the windows thrown wide open, toys piled up to the sills. They'd climbed up and outside and were sitting outside, legs swinging, hanging over the pavement.

It would have probably been broken bones if they'd gone over, but there were also railings...

We screwed all the windows shut after that.
 
Hello all,

Very interesting thread with hair-raising experiences. My incident occurred a long, long time ago, but it was a nightmare, so I never forgot it.

It was my first year living abroad, in Munich, because I had a fellowship to study at the university. I was young then and definitely more naive than I am now. I also had a tendency to get homesick during holidays.

It was coming up on Easter, and I had met a man in Munich who, upon learning that my family was all in the States, invited me to come to an Easter-season get-together at his house. He said some of his family members and his neighbors would be there. He lived south of Munich in a small town, the name of which escapes me now. In any event, he said he needed to pick up some items for the party in Munich and could give me a ride to his house. It would be much speedier than public transportation. He also said he was inviting me because so many other students would be at home with their own families, that he didn't want to see me spending the holidays alone. Long story short, I accepted.

Easter came early that year, and winter had been reluctant to leave. There had been a huge snowstorm and I was glad for the chance to ride door-to-door in a heated car. Being very German, he picked me up right on time in the evening, and we rode out to his place.

At this point, you will probably not be surprised to learn that when I got to his house, there was no one else there. He told me that he had wanted to "surprise me" with an event just for me. He also said he didn't want to "share" my presence with anyone else.

My blood was curdling at this point already. In addition to having lied to me and thereby being so rude to me, he also struck me as someone who was at least a little "off." The warning siren was going off in my head. I felt like I had to handle him carefully because he scared me so much, and I believed him to be crazy.

He put out cheese and sausage and bread in the kitchen for us, and I sat down even though I had no hunger whatsoever. While seated in the kitchen, he told me how wonderful it was that I had entered his life and that henceforth we would be inseparable, and that to "consecrate" our new relationship, we would have sex that night.

Now I was beyond scared. I was frantic to think of some way to get out of his house. In the meanwhile, he wanted to "entertain me" with a performance of his expert knife-throwing skills. My life flashed before me and I wondered how long it would take my parents (or anybody) to know I was missing.

I had an idea. It entailed first pretending to go along with all his "suggestions" about the evening. I laid it on thick. Now, the whole time we were in the kitchen he was chain-smoking. I was smoking, too, in order to have something to burn him with, if it came to that. There was a huge cloud of smoke in the kitchen. So I suggested that we go for a short walk outside to get some fresh air before we would get down to business, so to speak. Amazingly, he agreed. Germans do love going for walks, and he apparently believed my acting job.

Once we got outside, we started walking in the middle of the narrow street. He held my hand tightly. All of a sudden, thank God, a car rounded the bend and started coming slowly toward us. Suddenly I wrenched my hand out of his, ran right in front of the oncoming car, all the time screaming, "Hilfe!" There was an older gentleman in the car and when he rolled down his window, I told him that this man was trying to hurt me. He told me to get in the car, which I did, pronto. This gentleman was a true gentleman and told me he was heading for Munich and would take me home. He asked me if I wanted to file a complaint with the police, and coward that I was, I said no. I didn't trust the police to take me seriously, especially since at that point in my life my German tended to deteriorate when I was under stress. Also the creep hadn't actually hurt me. Although to this day, I believe he would have hurt me, if not worse.

Thanks for reading this long story! I would say that the moral of the story was "don't talk to strangers," except that, once I moved to Germany, everybody was a stranger.
 
My sister's mate was once picked up hitchhiking by a weird bloke. He begged her to allow him to 'put just one finger in, just a bit!' and she was considering letting him do that just to get away when she noticed he had webbed fingers...
Let me guess- he was a clay-head?!
 
Got a lift into Leeds with my dad - was when I was at uni so would have been home briefly for a visit in the holidays - but the downside of the free lift was, he went to work early so it was some time before 9AM and I had time to kill walking through town.

I was on that road W H Smiths used to be on, forget the name, and walked under some scaffolding on one of the shops on t'other side. When this dirty great thing - I called it a 'spanner' at the time but it was so large it was more of a wrench, I think - fell from one of the highest parts (this thing about a foot long, in my memory, at least) and landed on the pavement inches in front of me. It was so early in the morning, I think I'd assumed nobody was up the scaffolding so it was a sort of double shock. No way that thing wouldn't have killed me if it had landed on my head from that height.

My other close shave I have posted about before on here so will only do quickly. About 17 years ago, had an argument very late at night with my ex. I got in car to drive the 5 miles home. Entire 5 miles down a country lane that happens to go past the farm where my mum was born. A week before, right outside the bridge to the farm, I'd seen a barn owl just sitting in the road. (My late mum had LOVED barn owls and we used to sit on our back step watching them at night when I was a kid, just to give some context). Owl literally looked me right in the eye and only flew away at the last minute. Week to the day later, argument with ex, and rather than drive straight home, I was so upset I sat in the car for a while. Then heard sirens. Then tried to drive home only to hit a police road block, just before the bend in the road and right where the entrance (bridge because it was over a small canal thing) was to my mum's birthplace.

Later found out a man had lost control of his car and it had crossed the lane to the side I would have been on, and crashed there. He died. If I'd set off when I left ex's place, I could well have been at that precise point and as he jack-knifed I'd have been in his path.

A mate - who is a bit romany - had said to me days before, when I told her of the owl, it was some kind of omen/warning - but the folklore round here has always been, to see an owl is a good thing so I wasn't scared at the time when she said that because something told me it was all good.

We still go down that lane several times a week and I have never seen an owl sitting in the road, ever again although you see plenty of them flying and sitting on the hedges.

The death crashes there happen every few years or so. There have been a few since. Thing was, it was at the precise spot where the bridge and driveway to 'our' old farm was. My mother loved that place with all her heart and never had wanted to leave.
 
He also said he was inviting me because so many other students would be at home with their own families, that he didn't want to see me spending the holidays alone.
Invitations + solicitous sentiment by someone you hardly know = TERROR!

Geez, every paragraph of your post seemed to ratchet up the anxiety as I read it. What a really creepy, scary, dangerous situation. I'm glad you got out of it okay!

And killer spanner/wrenches from the skies! Children inches from stepping onto nothingness! Yikes! I may sound flippant, but it's really astonishing to me how we can so narrowly miss or meet death on short notice like that.
 
When a young tearaway, I often used to go on the back of my older mate's motorbike. I regret it now, (along with all the many other stupid things I've done), but growing up in the middle of nowhere with very little money, one had to relieve the boredom somehow. Anyway, setting off from our village one day, something happened that made my mate give 'the finger' to someone in a Range Rover. We then set off uphill along an A road (a narrow non-primary one). Next thing, the driver of the car had come up along side us and I felt a rubbing on my right foot. I looked down to see the left front wheel of said car touching my foot. We sped off and when we stopped I had a tyre mark on my trainer. Whether the person driving the car was a really skilled driver or not, I don't know, but how we didn't get flung off has always amazed me.
 
Invitations + solicitous sentiment by someone you hardly know = TERROR!

Geez, every paragraph of your post seemed to ratchet up the anxiety as I read it. What a really creepy, scary, dangerous situation. I'm glad you got out of it okay!

And killer spanner/wrenches from the skies! Children inches from stepping onto nothingness! Yikes! I may sound flippant, but it's really astonishing to me how we can so narrowly miss or meet death on short notice like that.
Thanks, I also got anxious again just typing it up. I was able to remember exactly how I felt when it happened.

You don't sound flippant at all! In fact, I live in a city with notoriously horrible drivers, and some nights when I get to bed I'm just thankful I made it through another day unhurt, LOL.

The stories that really get my heart racing are the ones about children falling from a great height. In fact, it gets me thinking about Eric Clapton's little boy and what a horrific nightmare that was.

Not that wrenches falling from the sky won't put the fear of God in you, for sure! Just this past week there were dreadful storms in the mid-west US that featured baseball-sized hail. Getting hit on the noggin by a chunk of ice that size falling out of high storm clouds would be enough to kill anyone, or at least give them a traumatic brain injury. It seems miraculous that more people aren't hurt under such circumstances.
 
When a young tearaway, I often used to go on the back of my older mate's motorbike. I regret it now, (along with all the many other stupid things I've done), but growing up in the middle of nowhere with very little money, one had to relieve the boredom somehow. Anyway, setting off from our village one day, something happened that made my mate give 'the finger' to someone in a Range Rover. We then set off uphill along an A road (a narrow non-primary one). Next thing, the driver of the car had come up along side us and I felt a rubbing on my right foot. I looked down to see the left front wheel of said car touching my foot. We sped off and when we stopped I had a tyre mark on my trainer. Whether the person driving the car was a really skilled driver or not, I don't know, but how we didn't get flung off has always amazed me.
Just reading about it amazes me! That certainly qualifies as a lucky escape for you and your mate. Did he resolve not to flip the bird at another driver in future? In Germany, that's seriously illegal, giving the finger like that. In the US, it's not illegal, but in certain parts of the country it very might well get you shot, LOL.
 
Just reading about it amazes me! That certainly qualifies as a lucky escape for you and your mate. Did he resolve not to flip the bird at another driver in future? In Germany, that's seriously illegal, giving the finger like that. In the US, it's not illegal, but in certain parts of the country it very might well get you shot, LOL.
I can't remember why he did it- I think the driver had cut us up or something, but I do have a feeling that it wasn't warranted. Back then the 'two fingers' was the usual form of expression- I think my mate had watched too many American films. Yes, even in England now it could result in a more serious incident, but back then, certainly in small villages, you didn't have to worry too much about violence. I didn't know that about Germany and no, I certainly wouldn't try it in the States!
 
Due to go to a meeting at an office on Westminster Bridge, my office being very close by. We were all just about to get ready to go when one of my colleagues asks what that sound was. What she heard was the shots that killed the Westminster Bridge murderer, if we’d been ten minutes earlier or he’d been ten minutes later we’d have been right in the middle of it.
 
Hello all,

Very interesting thread with hair-raising experiences. My incident occurred a long, long time ago, but it was a nightmare, so I never forgot it.

It was my first year living abroad, in Munich, because I had a fellowship to study at the university. I was young then and definitely more naive than I am now. I also had a tendency to get homesick during holidays.

It was coming up on Easter, and I had met a man in Munich who, upon learning that my family was all in the States, invited me to come to an Easter-season get-together at his house. He said some of his family members and his neighbors would be there. He lived south of Munich in a small town, the name of which escapes me now. In any event, he said he needed to pick up some items for the party in Munich and could give me a ride to his house. It would be much speedier than public transportation. He also said he was inviting me because so many other students would be at home with their own families, that he didn't want to see me spending the holidays alone. Long story short, I accepted.

Easter came early that year, and winter had been reluctant to leave. There had been a huge snowstorm and I was glad for the chance to ride door-to-door in a heated car. Being very German, he picked me up right on time in the evening, and we rode out to his place.

At this point, you will probably not be surprised to learn that when I got to his house, there was no one else there. He told me that he had wanted to "surprise me" with an event just for me. He also said he didn't want to "share" my presence with anyone else.

My blood was curdling at this point already. In addition to having lied to me and thereby being so rude to me, he also struck me as someone who was at least a little "off." The warning siren was going off in my head. I felt like I had to handle him carefully because he scared me so much, and I believed him to be crazy.

He put out cheese and sausage and bread in the kitchen for us, and I sat down even though I had no hunger whatsoever. While seated in the kitchen, he told me how wonderful it was that I had entered his life and that henceforth we would be inseparable, and that to "consecrate" our new relationship, we would have sex that night.

Now I was beyond scared. I was frantic to think of some way to get out of his house. In the meanwhile, he wanted to "entertain me" with a performance of his expert knife-throwing skills. My life flashed before me and I wondered how long it would take my parents (or anybody) to know I was missing.

I had an idea. It entailed first pretending to go along with all his "suggestions" about the evening. I laid it on thick. Now, the whole time we were in the kitchen he was chain-smoking. I was smoking, too, in order to have something to burn him with, if it came to that. There was a huge cloud of smoke in the kitchen. So I suggested that we go for a short walk outside to get some fresh air before we would get down to business, so to speak. Amazingly, he agreed. Germans do love going for walks, and he apparently believed my acting job.

Once we got outside, we started walking in the middle of the narrow street. He held my hand tightly. All of a sudden, thank God, a car rounded the bend and started coming slowly toward us. Suddenly I wrenched my hand out of his, ran right in front of the oncoming car, all the time screaming, "Hilfe!" There was an older gentleman in the car and when he rolled down his window, I told him that this man was trying to hurt me. He told me to get in the car, which I did, pronto. This gentleman was a true gentleman and told me he was heading for Munich and would take me home. He asked me if I wanted to file a complaint with the police, and coward that I was, I said no. I didn't trust the police to take me seriously, especially since at that point in my life my German tended to deteriorate when I was under stress. Also the creep hadn't actually hurt me. Although to this day, I believe he would have hurt me, if not worse.

Thanks for reading this long story! I would say that the moral of the story was "don't talk to strangers," except that, once I moved to Germany, everybody was a stranger.
Crikey KID you have been in some scrapes. Women can be incredibly naively trusting sometimes. I've had to haul some out of terrible predicaments in the past. Please stay safe.
 
Crikey KID you have been in some scrapes. Women can be incredibly naively trusting sometimes. I've had to haul some out of terrible predicaments in the past. Please stay safe.
Thank you for being concerned! And thank you for the hauling you do to help other women!

In my defense, I'll just say that I was very, very young back then, and hence way too naive. Needless to say, I never told my parents, as I thought it could give them heart attacks retroactively.

Your advice to stay safe is something I've paid close attention to since then, of course, and especially now that I use some dating apps. I always meet at a restaurant and refuse to go someplace private after the meal, always arrive and depart under my own steam, and give my roommate the person's name and telephone number (and address, if I can google it in advance). Happily, I've been good at filtering out the weirdos and have met and dated some interesting people who were quite respectful.
 
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